Category: U.S. Constitution

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government U.S. Constitution

The Post Office’s Future?

At some point approaching catastrophe, one has to stop offering googly sounds of uplift and hope, and just speak the truth.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe may understand that. The U.S. Post Office, he recently told the National Press Club, is “in a deep financial crisis because we have a business model that is tied to the past.” Deep ties to the past, indeed. Setting up a postal system was written into the Constitution.

Early in the system’s history, postal positions served as rewards to friends of successful politicians. This put a lot of bad apples into the cider; the business soured. Postage skyrocketed.

This sorry situation brought entrepreneurs into the market, delivering letters at a fraction of the government system’s prices. The politicians fought back, took the competitors to court, and won — on dubious Constitutional grounds.

But they did overhaul the system, reducing prices.

That was a long time ago. Today’s situation may be worse. As Donahoe put it, “We are expected to operate like a business but we do not have the flexibility to do so. Our business model is fundamentally inflexible.”

No surprise, Congress is inflexible. But there are competing bills rumbling around to allegedly fix the financial woes of the institution Donahoe calls “a national treasure.”

Well, if it’s a treasure, sell it off: The federal government could use the money. (Though likely not well.)

And the people could use a good privatized mail service. Or two. Or more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture too much government U.S. Constitution

The 14th Amendment Escape Clause?

Just as Tea Party representatives begin to bring the Constitution back into vogue, primarily to curb the power and spending of Congress, an innovative interpretation of the 14th Amendment floats around the capital, finding enthusiastic supporters amongst advocates of never-​ending debt accumulation.

You see, Congress has limited the debt, by law, since 1917. And has raised that limit umpteen times (ten times this past decade). Now that Tea Party Republicans are using the debt limit to negotiate cuts in spending, the pro-​spending forces are becoming frantic.

And clever.

Some of them now argue that Section Four of the 14th Amendment would allow the president to raise the debt limit without Congressional permission. After all, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” 

At first blush this makes some sense, until one realizes that the 1917 law is, in fact, “the authorization” mentioned in the very clause — at which point the argument collapses faster than the integrity of politicians in closed session.

Still, the idea of the Executive Branch interposing between Congress and the people — like “state nullification” interposed, in James Madison’s very words, between the federal government and the people — is worth thinking about. And Congress could reinstate the president’s power to “impound” funds designated by Congress that he judges not authorized by the Constitution.

But you won’t find pro-​spending forces advocating that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Indefinite Detention, Definitely Wrong

“No western government has ever claimed the power to do this,” said Judge Andrew Napolitano, on Fox’s The Plain Truth. “Not the King of England, not Hitler, not Stalin, not even the Russian and Chinese Communists.”

Hitler comparisons are a dime a dozen these days, but Napolitano was not referring to something minor. He was talking about the power to hold someone for the whole of his or her natural life, even after being acquitted in a U.S. court of law. 

By a jury. 

Yes, on March 7, 2011, Barack Obama, President of the United States, signed an executive order detailing how detainees will be held. Key word: “continued” — which is code for Indefinite.

The president’s supporters squirmed. Obama had promised to close the Guantánamo Bay facility during his campaign. On AlterNet the story was covered as a “step forward.” The Washington Post, on the other hand, quotes Republican Representative Peter T. King saying the order vindicates George W. Bush, whose administration had established the practice of indefinitely holding suspected terrorists at the site.

The order does affirm the right of habeus corpus for detainees. But its aim is to merely provide a review of cases. It doesn’t question “the executive branch’s continued, discretionary exercise of existing detention authority” — which is what rightly bothers Judge Napolitano. 

The order is legalese; non-​lawyers may nod off. It’s hard to see the Hitlerian element.

But that’s what the “banality of evil” is all about.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government U.S. Constitution

Not His Job

President Obama will address the State of the Union, today, speaking before Congress. These annual efforts are almost uniformly unbearable, with too much applause and too much rah-​rah-​boy politicking. And far too little thought.

Scuttlebutt has it that the president will concentrate on the economy, on “jobs.”

After the sea change of the last election, one might hope that he’d stay on topic and address constitutionally-​mandated issues of his office.

“Jobs” are none of his business. “Jobs” — by which I mean the number of people employed this way or that out there in the non-​governmental sector, and by which he means the number of jobs total, including those paid for out of taxpayer expense — should not be his chief worry.

No president in recent memory has excelled by fiddling with policy to micromanage “the economy.” No one knows this stuff. Not even college professors specializing in macroeconomics.

What government operatives know is how to get elected, stay in office. How to preen for television cameras, read a prompter.

You know, the essentials.

But they cannot possibly know enough to “run the economy.”

And yet, Obama talks about making the country “more competitive.” Oh, come on. Just open up trade — which promotes widespread co-​operation as well as competition — stop micromanaging the money supply through the Fed, make regulations fit a rule of law and not a vast bureaucratic command system, and let it go. Let individuals and businesses worry about “competiveness.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

The Warfare Over General Welfare

Constitutionalists, flush with the attention being paid this very day in the House of Representatives to the land’s highest law, finally get to hold their conversations outside of seminars and institutes.

Some pundits argue that Tea Party folks will be surprised by how much power the Constitution gives the federal government. (Sure, I miss the Articles of Confederation.)

But however much power Madison & Co. bestowed upon the Feds, there is a limit. This comes as a shock to career politicians who envision government as all things to all people, from world cop to tooth fairy.

They like to point to the “general welfare clause,” which reads: “The Congress shall have the Power To … provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Could this mean Congress can do anything it wants, if designed to help people generally?

Yesterday, several Wall Street Journal readers cleared up any misunderstandings. 

Michael Hanselman of Maryland cited Thomas Jefferson’s 1814 conviction that “Congress had not unlimited powers … to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated.” 

Arnold Nelson of Chicago quoted from Federalist 41, where James Madison, the Constitution’s chief architect, decried an expansive view of “general Welfare” as “a very fierce attack against the Constitution.” Mr. Nelson and Mr. Madison point to the 18 enumerated powers in Section 8, which are the only powers Congress has to affect the general welfare.

The intent? Clear. Today’s reality? Much different.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Reading Comprehension

Never has the Constitution been read on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. And, boy, does our political situation show it.

When the 112th Congress convenes this week, the law of the land — the limited, enumerated powers granted to the federal government by “We the People” in this 223-​year old document — will for the first time be spoken aloud for all honorables to hear. It’s a quick read, less than 5,000 words, and presumably cameras will be rolling, so we’ll know if any elected representative sticks finger into ear during the recitation.

A hat-​tip to the Tea Party movement, this reading of the Constitution is a great way to remind our legislators that such a document actually exists.

Even better, a new rule will be proposed requiring every piece of legislation to have affixed a citation “where in the Constitution Congress is empowered to enact such legislation.”

Sure, Washington pundits have mocked this newborn constitutionalism, crying “gimmick!” One history professor called it “entirely cosmetic.” Tea Party activists are skeptical, too. As they should be.

Neither reading the Constitution nor declaring the constitutional authority for legislation amounts to magic. But, with a political process in which politicians rarely recognize any limits to their wizardry, a requirement that Congress specifically pay attention to whether its actions are permitted by the Constitution is, well, really good.

Will it lead to Congress actually abiding by the limits of our Constitution? It certainly couldn’t hurt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.